


Pushing Into That Empty Space

by desfinado



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:26:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desfinado/pseuds/desfinado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon finally understood where it was that Brendon could be himself, where he took comfort in yielding; gained confidence from being told what to do.</p><p><i>Brendon's eyes fell shut again, moaning, surprising Jon with how much he wanted and how much he was willing to let Ryan take from him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushing Into That Empty Space

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a million times over to reni_days for giving me fantastic, useful feedback and correcting all my rookie canon mistakes!

There was always something so _big_ that Brendon wore, that he carried with him in public.

His voice seemed larger than the compact width of his ribcage should be able to accommodate, moving towards the center of everything always, pushing his shoulder up against someone else's so he could nudge his way into the conversation, the light.

It was difficult for Jon not to notice these things; when he joined the band, he had that distance that _not_ being with those three through everything granted him. It was something he had loved about being a tech, and it wasn’t so different on bass: letting others take center stage but being there just to provide a part of the whole, to provide that steady support, that company. And as he settled into the band, a process made much easier by the fact that he already _knew_ them so well, Jon’s mind wandered to the person he most often found himself watching from behind – on stage and off.

In crowds, he would see the ribbed rubber of the underside of Brendon's shoes as he lifted up onto the balls of his feet, calf muscles flexed through the clinging denim of his jeans, just to get that much closer to the center of it all.

In conversation, it seemed to Jon that Brendon made it his responsibility to fill every silence, pushing himself out into those quiet spaces like a bubble of air, expanding always, filling any empty corners. It sometimes made Jon uncomfortable to see how hard he tried, to see Brendon always pushing, pushing, pushing to be near the center of things – to hear the blurted comments or abrupt, out-of-place jokes Brendon sometimes made that rendered others speechless, nodding, awkward. He filled every empty space and sometimes the air he filled it with was a bit off, a bit uncertain.

It reminded Jon of being eight years old, walking around in his dad's tan-colored loafers, heavy and long on his feet like clown's shoes. He had worked hard to fill the empty space in them, to carry their weight and make himself big enough to do so in a way that appeared effortless.

At meet-and-greets he would watch Brendon leap onto Zack's back, arms wrapped around him with a smile but dark brown eyes darting up and out, always looking to see who was watching, who was taking a picture. To Jon, it was no different from curling and flexing his toes, tendons in his feet straining, taking baby steps with stiff legs just so he could walk through the kitchen in his dad's shoes.

Brendon worked hard to command that bright, hot, important center of everything - but it was the uncertainty with which he did it that made it clear to Jon just how much that _wasn't_ Brendon, not really. He never seemed entirely at ease, or calm, in that space.

Jon could see the way he bent his foot outwards, lifting up and down on the outside of his shoe nervously as he stood, could feel the cool damp of Brendon's palms and fingertips when they caught and released his forearm in passing. It was such a contradiction; it was intriguing. He wondered where it was that Brendon actually felt confident, relaxed, and sure of himself.

Out of all the situations Jon saw him in, he felt like maybe it was the stage – it seemed to him that Brendon commanded it and carried it with much more grace. But it was more of a rehearsed performance than anything else, and when Brendon would move beyond his self-prescribed script, share something in between songs, Jon saw his hand shake on the mic, heard his loud and steady voice drop an octave to the low tone it took whenever Brendon was out of breath and slightly out of key.

He began to realize that what relaxed Brendon so much about the show was how planned and practiced it was – how his eyes would flicker to an invisible marker on the stage in the moment before he'd stalk over to it, how he did the same ad-libs every night, how he'd snap his fingers and flick his wrist when he sang the same words, right on cue. Comfort in boundaries, in repetition, in structure.

In Arizona, Jon learned that there was another place where Brendon left his insecurities, his imperative to fill every empty silence, at the door.

* * *

The hotel they were planning on staying at in Phoenix had mixed up their booking, meaning when they arrived they would have to wait it out while Zack made new arrangements, all for a city they weren’t even playing in, just a pit stop.

On the way there in the hot afternoon sun they stopped at a gas station to stretch their legs, and when Spencer tossed out the kind-of-impulsive idea of staying at the vacant motel there, in the middle of the desert, it caught like bushfire. Despite Zack’s pestering, the place was in fact empty and there were no towns for miles, so there really wasn’t much to worry about.

Jon and Ryan spent the evening eating a dinner of pepperoni sticks and Mr. Pringles from the gas station, talking instruments amongst comfortable lapses into silence under the shade of the patio umbrella. It kind of felt like a vacation, albeit a budget one, to Jon. It was harder and harder these days to just _hang out_ around a patio under faded umbrellas like this in a busy urban hotel.

As they sat looking out across the small, abandoned swimming pool to the highway and the flat nothingness of the desert beyond, shimmering heat distorting shapes and colors, Jon noticed Ryan had unbuttoned his shirt, loosened his tie and rolled up his pants. It was as good a sign as any that he was relaxed.

The sun set too soon. Jon watched as, after chatting with Spencer all evening, Brendon reluctantly pulled his dangling legs out of the pool, peeling wet grass and leaves off of his skin to flick at Zack when he warned of Hep. C and other mysterious abandoned-pool diseases. Nobody argued about the idea of turning in early, or stretching out on real beds.

Jon showered and lay on his back for a long time just listening to nearby highway sounds, the chorus of crickets and cicadas in the sun-bleached grasses beyond his window.

He must have drifted off, but soon after he awoke he decided to get up. The prickle of the rough wool comforter was starting to become uncomfortable, his fingernails scratching at the skin of his neck.

In the late-night air, Jon stepped out of his room quietly. He cupped his hand over his mouth and hunched slightly, knobs of his spine curved against the cold wood of his door before he straightened up again, cherry glowing red a few inches from his fingertips. It relaxed him almost instantly, days of little sleep and cramped quarters washing through and out of him. He exhaled, scanning the nearly-empty parking lot and the dark windows of the two dozen or so other rooms that opened onto it, their curtains drawn shut.

No cars passed on the highway anymore. Jon splayed a hand on the door behind him, pushing himself off of it to pad barefoot down the length of the walkway. He reached the end of the building and rounded the corner, the scent of dirt and dry grasses on the air and making him feel a bit more awake, a bit more adventurous.

Although he couldn’t see, he could remember from when it was light out: behind the building there was nothing but desert – something Jon wasn’t used to, something that seemed so empty but which overwhelmed him with its sheer size, the extreme way in which everything in it survived.

It was much darker back here, no lights lit behind the long, low building. Aside from two dumpsters at the opposite end it was relatively empty, the same rectangular windows facing out into the desert, equal distance from each other all the way down.

From here it looked like none of the lights were on, which didn’t surprise him. Everyone had seemed so tired, even Zack. Jon wasn’t sure why he was so awake, himself – but it was nice out here, and as he stepped off of the pavement he liked the feel of the dirt under his toes, the occasional small rocks and grasses.

He walked slowly along behind the motel, held his last inhale for a full six paces before flicking the butt against the concrete wall and tipping his head back, stopping in place to look up at the startlingly clear night sky as he blew thick gray smoke upwards.

He heard a sound, then - it was quiet but out of place in the still desert darkness that Jon's eyes had adjusted to. A voice, low like a grunt. Jon scrubbed his hand over his face before stepping softly towards the wall, careful not to drag his bare feet in the dirt.

And then again - a grunt and the teeth of a zipper undone. Jon was sure it was someone inside, just beyond the window he was now standing next to.

The window was about his height although it started a foot from the ground, and had been opened a few inches, mosquito netting obscuring Jon's view through the bottom. But he moved closer and, with his eyes accustomed to the low light, could see fairly well.

He looked more just to satiate his curiosity as to who it was than to actually _watch_ what they were doing. Maybe if someone was awake they’d want to share a second joint, enjoy the calm nothingness of the desert night with him, talk about stars and the universe and all the abstract ideas on Jon’s mind.

Inside the room the bathroom light was the only one on, the door at a right angle to the window slightly ajar but the sliver of light bisecting the floor and casting a dim yellow hue across the room. Around the edge of the bathroom wall there was the bed partly obscured at the opposite wall, the room arranged in the same way as Jon's: a twin bed, the large front window to its right with the blinds pulled closed.

On the bed he could tell someone was lying above the covers, moving. The corner of the bathroom wall was in the way, Jon couldn't see his face, but whoever it was had unfastened his pants. Jon thought maybe he should wait until he was finished getting changed before he rapped on the window, just to be polite.

He glanced away into the night but the squeak of a bed spring brought his eyes back instinctively. Whoever it was arched their hips off the bed, shoulders and heels pushing back into the mattress as they shoved their pants down their thighs. The movement caused the fabric on their chest to shift, and Jon saw a thin, dark-colored tie falling to the side into the space between their arm and their ribcage, buttons of their pale, patterned shirt straining against the bend.

It was clearly Ryan – who else wore ties and button-downs when they traveled on the _bus_ – and Jon smiled in amusement as he watched him struggle, sitting up slightly to get the tight fabric of his pants down over his knees. He stretched back out on the bed, white elastic of his boxer-briefs ending just an inch below his shirttails.

"No."

Ryan's voice snapped Jon upright, like cold water at the crown of his head. He had been staring so closely through the glass that he felt utterly detached from his own body, the dry night air, the cicadas. The high from his joint had sneaked up on him somewhere between gazing at the starry sky and the cold press of the concrete wall against his right side.

Jon remembered himself again and realized that Ryan must be on his phone, out of sight behind the bathroom wall, so it might be better to wait until he hung up before knocking on the window. Jon scratched his fingertips through the stubble across his right cheek, lifting his eyes to the dark night, the cold flat wall extending down the length of the motel to the dumpsters at the far end.

"Not yet."

Jon didn't move but his eyes flicked back to the window. He knew Ryan wasn't speaking to him, that between the soft light in the room and the darkness outside, Jon was close to invisible at the window. But the clarity of Ryan's voice, the proximity, startled him and rooted him in place. He had forgotten the window was slightly open.

There were Ryan's fingers now, long and spidery as he slipped his thumbs under the waistband of his underwear, just inside his hipbones in the hollow spaces that Jon knew were there, that Jon saw often enough when his pants hung low. Ryan lifted the fabric up high, holding it away from his body but not pulling it down.

Jon's breath was so quiet, his heart feeling heavy and slow like it always did when he was high. He shifted onto his right foot, leaning more of his weight against the rough concrete of the wall. He felt like he shouldn’t be watching this, whatever this was, but the fact that he was near invisible in the dark night was like an invitation to stay hidden, stay watching.

Now Ryan slid the underwear down, pulling bony knees into his chest to hook the fabric over his feet and kick them off. He stretched his bare legs out again on the bed, settling back into the mattress, hands long and limp at his sides.

Jon’s eyes settled on the darkness of the hair below Ryan’s navel, the pale length of him laid bare across his abdomen, angled to the left. He rarely ever looked so directly at other guys like this, but the fact that he couldn’t see Ryan’s face – that no one knew he was looking – made it easier, and made him more curious.

The tip of it brushed the hem of Ryan's button-down shirt, and something seemed off about it all to Jon, unnatural. There was something in the angle it lay at, flush against his body, the way it had moved when Ryan had kicked his underwear off, just a slight jostle to the side, nothing sharp or taut about it.

 _He's not hard._

Jon's tongue felt too full in his mouth for a moment, swallowing around the dryness that had settled there. A warm spread of jealousy-surprise-fascination spread, tingling, across the back of his neck. That pale length curved up to almost where the top of Ryan's jeans often sat on his hips, so long _and not even hard_.

"Now."

Jon's eyebrows creased for a moment. He had assumed Ryan was on his cell phone, but now the words seemed paced between his movements, connected somehow. As Ryan remained still, Jon heard the metal-on-metal of a belt buckle, and then fabric sounds.

There was breathing, controlled and heavy, that Jon was surprised he hadn't noticed until now, coming from a place closer to the window and on his side of the room.

Jon wondered _who?_ because they were in the desert and the motel was empty aside from them. Then, just as he thought - _aside from them_ \- one more time, the words dropping heavily into his mind, there was a body crawling over Ryan's. It was naked, pale, the unmistakable swing of a dick between those legs before he settled back onto his heels over Ryan's thighs.

This time, Jon didn't have the luxury of having his band mate's face obscured. The short length of muscled legs and strong thighs, the pale and compact torso, the strong hands with fingers spread wide, braced on his own thighs. Jon's eyes fell to Brendon's hard cock in the shadow between his legs before flicking away, out of discomfort, up to his face.

From behind and to the left, it was the profile of features John knew well. What Jon didn't find familiar was the way in which Brendon sat so quietly, his hands still, his voice and personality not pushing out to fill the quiet, the space in the room, like John was so used to him doing. It was this surprising calm that kept Jon from averting his eyes, from giving them the privacy a part of him felt they deserved.

"Touch it."

Ryan's voice didn't startle Jon so much this time, the syllables clipped and less nasal than his voice usually was. Jon couldn't make out Brendon's eyes but he could tell from the way his head tilted down, thigh muscles shifting, where Brendon had shifted his attention to.

His pale, short fingers wrapped effortlessly around Ryan's base, pulling up slowly before moving down again. Ryan's long fingers stayed on the bedspread but his forefinger curled in, tip brushing along the outside of his narrow, bony hips.

Jon's body felt hot all over, like he should be sweating but instead he was simmering from the inside, skin scratchy. This intimacy was so overwhelming that he felt a part of it standing just feet away, invisible in the still night air.

His high was making it hard to stay aware of multiple things at once; it kept tunneling his focus so thoroughly on Ryan and Brendon that he hardly noticed his body, the smell of the grass outside, the fact that had he been more awake he might be gone by now.

In the soft light Jon saw Brendon's forearm muscles flex, saw those veins protruding, saw the brief flash of skin, the darkened head of Ryan’s cock, disappear and appear again through the ring of Brendon's thumb and forefinger. Jon swallowed once more – it helped root him, bring him back to his body, feeling his muscles move, the inside of his throat working against his too-hot skin.

" _God._ "

It was Brendon's tenor, soft and reverent, so close and intimate that Jon's eyes fell shut for a moment, breath ghosting across his lips, like Brendon had just spoken to _him_. His voice had never sent such liquid warmth through Jon's limbs, had never settled heavy in his core like that.

Jon's body swayed forwards an inch, just an inch, but it made him open his eyes. He had to be careful. Even if tried to leave, he was high and bit less co-ordinated and now it would _really_ be the wrong moment to make a noise.

His upper arm was pressed up against the rough coolness of the wall, supporting his right side, and as he looked back into the room his right hand slid up to curve around the side of his neck, fingers in the curling hairs at the nape of his neck, stilling there. It was getting harder for him not to watch.

Brendon sat upright and motionless, twin shadowed dimples of muscle above the swell of his ass, the long darkened line of his spine. Jon now saw why he had spoken. His left arm was extended, hand wrapped tight around the base of Ryan's cock, holding it away from his stomach, upright.

Jon's fingers tensed, pressing against the corded muscles at the back of his neck. Ryan's dick… earlier it had seemed so big and he wasn't even hard. It was even longer and fuller now, as wide as Jon's but _so_ much longer, darkened head, and Jon knew he couldn't see them but he imagined veins running up the length, raised in a slightly darker relief to the pale flesh and the skin stretched so taut.

"Your mouth."

Ryan's voice was firm and low, controlling. Brendon shifted back on his knees without removing the grip he had on Ryan, hard cock swaying in his own lap, before kneeling over Ryan's calves and bending down.

Jon's eyes trailed up the tensed and muscular flex of Brendon's ass to the ridge of his curved spine, shoulder blades protruding, head lowered, strong line of his jaw opened wide, full lips stretched, taking Ryan in. Jon had never seen another guy... it was new. _So_ new.

Ryan hummed and to Jon it sounded like an affirmation, Ryan's hand closing into a fist, tendons on the back standing out. Brendon's head raised and fell in response. Jon caught a glimpse of Ryan's length, the skin between Brendon's fist and his lips that he couldn't fit in his mouth.

Jon's other hand was up at the base of his neck now too, heel of his palm pushing hard into his collarbone, and it felt good. It didn't distance him from Ryan and Brendon but made him feel closer – the pressure, the steady heavy pressure that echoed the heavy thrumming through his body.

The bed creaked as Brendon found a tempo, uncurling the fingers of his left hand to plant both palms on either side of Ryan's narrow hips, arms bent at the elbow like he was doing push-ups.

Jon could see how his stomach muscles expanded and contracted with his movement and with each breath, the definition of his biceps and his jaw so wide to accommodate the girth of Ryan's cock, Brendon’s chin bumping his chest each time he ducked down to capture as much of it as he could.

At the edge of his awareness, Jon knew he was turned on. He knew it in the way he always did when he was high, when it uncurled and bloomed outwards from the base of his spine, his belly. It was so slow and warm like the rest of his body felt that he often didn't realize until his wrist brushed the hard contours of his dick through his jeans, crossing his legs uncomfortably to will it away when he was in public.

While he knew they deserved privacy, Jon also felt such a part of their intimacy, reacting to every touch and sound, that it was difficult to imagine closing his eyes and stepping away. He interlocked his fingers behind his head, just to keep them there, just so he wouldn't touch.

As he leaned against the wall, hot breath ghosting across his bare forearms, he noticed Ryan's fingers twitch on the blanket, reaching out for a moment before curling back into a fist. His hips rose and fell as he clenched and relaxed his ass, skinny thighs drawing together slightly.

Jon didn't wish the bathroom wall wasn't there, because it gave him a distance that he felt he sort of needed from the Ryan he had spoken to in the shade of the patio umbrella that evening. But he wondered. He wondered what shape Ryan's features might take, how his lips might look, red and obscene from worrying them between his teeth, Adam’s apple bobbing, eyes hot and intense.

"Stop."

It was high, like a whine, the most affected Ryan had seemed all night.

Both Jon and Brendon froze in anticipation. After a moment filled with heavy breathing, the tails of Ryan's shirt shifting with the rise and fall of his chest, he wrapped his fingers around the base of his own cock. They looked so appropriate, so long and sure and familiar taking their place where the heavy-looking shaft rose from the dark shadow of hair.

In that one gesture, Jon knew this was how Ryan looked when he was alone, when he tangled his legs in his blankets, curled against the wall, forehead sweaty, strands of hair clinging to his brow. This was how Ryan looked as he pushed his face down into the mattress to stifle the small sounds Jon had heard him make, mouth open and full of cotton, skinny fingers fast and efficient along that impossibly long cock, toes spreading and curling in the mess of sheets.

Brendon rose just as Jon's forearms started to quiver from overexertion and he let his arms drop to his sides, thumbs tucking into his pockets. Jon's shoulders hunched, tensed when he saw Brendon's face, hovering a few inches from Ryan's glistening wet head, those full lips wet and filthy-looking, eyes heavy-lidded.

Stopping, just like Ryan said.

This side of Brendon was so rare, and that was part of what made it so wanton, so intriguing. Ryan dragged his hand up, one slow pull of his own cock, and in that languid stroke Jon saw his lower back lift slightly off of the bed, arching into the movement, the touch. Brendon moaned softly, a low throaty sound, but was abruptly cut off when Ryan pressed the length of one long forefinger up the top of his shaft, pushing his cock forward to rest on Brendon's hanging lower lip.

Those long fingers turned around Ryan’s base, shifting so he could control the movement of his length better. He slid the glistening dark head along the length of Brendon's wet bottom lip, side to side. Brendon was quiet this time but he moved into it, pushing forward on his knees, back straightening slightly.

Ryan waited a moment before moving it again, now pushing the wide tip of his cock along Brendon's top lip before the bottom again, like painting him messily with lipstick. It was so hot and dirty, Jon couldn't stop his body from responding, from curling inwards a bit. Finally, with much less thought than he had devoted to _not_ touching himself, he pressed the heel of his right palm hard against his jeans.

Ryan kept pushing, pushing until the head of his wet cock moved past the edge of Brendon's mouth to slide, skidding on the dry skin of Brendon's cheek. Jon saw how Brendon's lips reached out to mouth at the side of Ryan's length, how he turned his face into the heavy thick hardness against his flesh. Jon blinked, still processing the total relinquishing of control that Brendon seemed to seek in this late-night, motel-room space.

Ryan pulled his dick off of Brendon's face for a moment before letting its taut weight pull it back, slapping Brendon's skin softly and causing him to totally deflate with a quiet noise, right arm buckling. His mouth slid down the side of Ryan's cock, red lips like a seal as he sank down to lie across his legs, eyes closed and dark eyelashes a shadow against his cheekbones.

Jon's fingers splayed wide, running the V of his thumb and forefinger up the length of his own cock through his jeans, feeling its weight and warmth, imagining the soft, yielding flesh of Brendon's cheek, of his lips.

Brendon curled his hand around a narrow hip as Ryan held his dick in place, Brendon’s fingers digging into soft flesh as he sloppily mouthed up and down the side of Ryan’s shaft. He moaned, hips bucking against the side of Ryan's leg, detaching his lips to turn his cheek against his length once more, rubbing back and forth. Jon wondered what the texture felt like against his face, the silky-slick skin, the impossible hardness and the ridged veins.

"Want you to – " Ryan swallowed around the tightness in his voice, steadying his monotone. " – right here, all over my cock."

The last consonant hung heavily in the air and Jon couldn't even imagine Ryan's lips forming that word, couldn't imagine him talking about himself like that. It felt like fire spreading across Jon's shoulder blades, prickling in the hair at his scalp. It sounded filthy and dangerous and commanding.

Brendon was fast, pushing up onto his knees, crawling forward until he was straddling Ryan's thighs again, closer this time. He licked his palm with a long wet swipe of his tongue before curling his fist around himself, in the dark area between his thighs that Jon couldn't identify with the speed of his movement.

His chest rose and fall, that compact frame shifting with muscles tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed. He tipped his head back as he flexed his ass, pushing his hips forward enough to rub the length of his own cock along Ryan's, still held in place, firm and tall and perpendicular to his body, by those long, long fingers.

Jon's heart didn't feel slow or heavy anymore, although he knew he was still high. His chest hitched every few breaths as he shifted against the wall, turning into it more, pressing his cheek to the cool concrete. Jon’s eyes remained on Brendon, fast and indulgent, so comfortable with bringing himself off, rubbing up and down and along the length of Ryan's cock as he fisted himself.

Jon's right hand still moved across the tightened denim of his jeans, not going inside, not enough friction to get him anywhere, but a background sort of sensation that kept his skin buzzing. It made him feel like a small part of what was going on inside the room, his breath beading moisture across the wall.

"Now. Do it now."

Ryan had full command of his voice this time, clear and direct. Brendon's eyelids fluttered and his head fell back on his shoulders, mouth open and jaw locked in a silent scream. His torso simultaneously hunched inwards, abs clenched, thighs jerking towards each other as he emptied himself in diagonal ribbons across the fuller length of Ryan's dick and along Ryan's knuckles and wrist.

A pause, and Jon blinked heavily, disbelieving. It was so intimate, so dirty, for Ryan to let Brendon use his own cock, his own fingers like that. For Ryan to say "now" and for Brendon to just do it.

Jon's fingers danced along himself, alternating pushing down hard and rubbing lightly along the denim. Brendon sat up after a moment, swallowing loudly before letting his mouth hang open once more, breath loud but slowing.

"Get back down here."

Brendon obeyed, stretching out to lie in between Ryan's legs, right arm bent to pillow his head on Ryan's side, left arm across those narrow thighs. It brought his face close to Ryan's hand and dick, still glistening obscenely with his come.

Ryan moved, finally. He slid his fingers out to direct his hard length, pushing it against the side of Brendon's face, sticky-wet trail shining in the dim light as he slid it up and down. Brendon's eyes fell shut again, moaning, surprising Jon with how much he wanted and how much he was willing to let Ryan take from him.

Wet and slippery, Ryan's long fingers rose up his own shaft, pumping himself now with long strokes, pushing the head of his dick into the sticky mess along Brendon's cheek every time he reached the tip.

Jon's left hand rose to his own cheek, rubbing the short hairs there, feeling the warmth of his fingers spreading outwards and through his nerve endings to his core. His attention was so focused on Ryan and Brendon that the feel of his own touch seemed slightly removed, like it wasn't his own.

Ryan grunted, a short but guttural sound, his hips losing their rhythm for a moment before he stilled them again. Brendon pushed the hem of Ryan's shirt up with his left hand, bunching the patterned fabric above his bellybutton, tie caught under his elbow that was planted in the mattress for leverage.

Brendon looked up at the space that Jon couldn't see, the space where Ryan's familiar features would be twisting into entirely unfamiliar shapes.

"Yeah."

Ryan sounded breathless, more intimate this time, and the corner of Brendon's lips pulled up in a smile that seemed both affectionate and lecherous at the same time. It was that confidence Jon saw him so rarely carry in a genuine way, which in itself seemed to take Jon’s arousal further through his limbs to spread, tingling, out to his fingertips.

Brendon rose onto his elbows and ducked to lick a long line up Ryan's cock from base to tip, swiping through his own come, over the ridges of Ryan's fingers still moving up and down its length.

Jon inhaled heavily and slid his fingers around to the back of his head, winding into his hair, pulling tight, pulling out those prickling sensations in his scalp that kept his skin feeling hot and buzzing.

Brendon lifted up to swirl his tongue around the head of Ryan’s cock, followed by another grunt from beyond Jon's field of vision. Then Brendon set to work ducking and maneuvering his mouth around Ryan's hand which was now speeding up, licking his come from the flushed, taut skin and pale knuckles with broad swipes of his tongue.

"Yeah, just. There. Just – "

Ryan choked on the last word, and then all he did was groan, low but seemingly forever, releasing his cock and shoving his palm hard into the mattress, bunching it in his fingers. His hips rose up, clearing the bed, hard wet cock slapping up against his belly. Brendon immediately wrapped his own shorter fingers around Ryan's base, lips wrapping around the tip.

Even with just the head of Ryan’s dick in his mouth, Brendon's red lips seemed stretched impossibly wide, fisting the exposed length as Ryan came, hands twitching and legs tensing, feet flexed. Brendon didn't move back, let him push as far in as he could, breath hitched, before he fell heavily back down, bouncing once before his fingers released the blankets, his body still.

Jon exhaled, realizing he had been holding his breath, and it came out shaky enough that he worried for the first time about being heard. But neither Brendon nor Ryan seemed to notice anything.

Brendon was quick to rise, sliding off the side of the bed and standing, stretching tall for a moment, arms above his head. Jon blinked, feeling like he hadn’t quite caught up with himself yet, or the fact that it was over.

His body sated, his cock soft, Brendon looked even more confident and sexual to Jon – it was in that innocent nudity that he now saw the muscles that had shifted and tensed, the fingers that had curled and uncurled, the jaw that had opened so wide, accommodating. Jon released the grip he'd had on his own hair, rubbed his hand back and forth across his chest, tried to pull himself out of this.

Brendon was changing now, out of sight once more, and Ryan had rolled to his side, the small swell of his buttocks, the bunched fabric of his shirt, and his back to Jon. The sharp jut of his hipbone and the narrow width of his frame appeared so fragile, but it seemed only to put into starker contrast the commanding tone Ryan had assumed, the control he had wielded.

Jon was still rubbing at himself through his jeans with the heel of his palm, eyes fixed on the shadow of Ryan's lower spine.

 _Control._

And Jon kind of understood, now. Kind of got why in this weird space, this late-night, motel-room space where the air from the bedroom hung heavy with the scent of sex, Brendon didn't try once, not even once, to fill the empty space like he usually did. Jon understood why his movements seemed so comfortable and certain, why he seemed so at ease.

This was one of those rare spaces where Brendon was just _Brendon_ , where he found certainty in direction and structure, where he found confidence in being told what to do. And Ryan, whether he understood this about Brendon or not, took responsibility for providing those strong words and directions. Jon blinked with awareness, with those moments of clarity that come from a good high.

Jon never saw Brendon leave but he heard the door open and close. He turned to face away into the dark night, back against the wall, hand still cupping himself, eyes falling closed. His limbs felt fluid and warm, his sustained arousal buzzing a little closer to the surface than it had a while ago, guilt about intruding upon this intimacy between his band mates easier to ignore beneath this distraction his body was providing.

It was dark and quiet and Jon could still smell, or imagined he could smell, the heady scent of come and sweat. He popped the button on his jeans with his thumb and forefinger, zipper falling open easily as he slid a clammy, hot palm around the heavy weight of his cock.

He didn't need to think too much, didn't need to replay scenes or imagine anyone's lips around him. He just focused on the miles of flat darkness in front of him, the air distilled around his moving hand, the huge empty space of the desert and the night and the sky that seemed devoid of anyone or anything but him, bringing himself closer to that emptiness.

The sound of Brendon's rubber soles on the pavement just on the other side of the building seemed loud in the night, but Jon didn't stop, high and buzzing enough with arousal to ignore the possibility of being caught. He listened to Brendon's footfalls, to the swing of his door and the heavy weight of it closing.

It was distant but felt somehow closer to Jon than anything in Ryan's room had been. In that instant, Jon and Brendon had both been breathing the same cool night air, listening to the same cicadas, separated only by a few feet of furniture and concrete. And they had both been there in that immense, dark, empty night, Jon's fingers tight and fast on his cock, his other palm flat on the wall beside him, grounding him.

His breath caught and his eyebrows drew together as he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, fingertips pressing into the concrete, toes curling in the soft dirt. The spreading warmth crashed outwards from his fist, flushing his veins, his spinal fluid, and his mind blank and replacing them with hot molten liquid, tingling and overwhelming, coursing through his body in waves.

He swallowed hard, opening his eyes to look down at the splatter of white, tacky droplets beading in the dirt by his feet.

Jon felt empty, wide and wiped clean like the flat expanse of dark desert ahead of him – his body, his energy, his sense of clarity and comprehension absolved in that moment.

He went to bed.

* * *

END


End file.
